Worlds by Joe Haldeman Read Free Book Online

hurricane.
    I’ve seen the sun only once since I got here, and thatwas because a holiday weekend (Labor Day) closed most of the factories to the south of here. I think the sun was one of the things I liked best about Devon’s World, and I wish we had it here.
    I hope you’re enjoying your line, and I’m sure they’re all nice people. Have you started your first baby yet? I might have one myself, once they find a way for the man to carry it around the first nine months.
    Your friend,

14
Diary entries
    4 Sept. 2084.    First class day. Let me just set down my schedule for the quarter:

    The “entertainment laboratory” is intriguing. Find out about it tomorrow. I guess well be going to shows and things. Interview whores on Broadway.
    5 Sept.    Last night a group of us went to a Vietnamese restaurant. Strangest food I’ve ever had: squid (aquatic mollusk) stuffed with ham and something else, with unidentifiable spices. Only the fish sauce was familiar. The ham didn’t taste anything like what John fixed for me lastyear, but it was all very tasty and hasn’t caused me any trouble, yet.
    They almost never eat goat or rabbit here, or anywhere else in the country. Mostly fish, pork, chicken, and beef. Dolores Brodie (who’s been here for two quarters, from Mitsubishi) says it’s the beef in their diet that gives them that rancid smell. Guess I’ll stop noticing it about the time I start to smell that way myself. Will have to try some beef tomorrow. So dark and strong. Maybe they fix it better down here, though.
    There are usually two “meatless” meals—they don’t consider fish to be meat—in the morning and midday. More starch than I’m used to. Have to watch the rice and hominy.
    The entertainment seminar doesn’t look as if it will be all that entertaining. The professor (Marlie Gwinn) has that desperately serious attitude teachers get when they have to be defensive about the academic worth of their specialty. I’ll write her a somber paper comparing sex on Earth with zerogee sex. That’s entertainment. The laboratory might be fun, most of the time. Shows and old movies, demonstrations of dances and games, concerts, who knows what. Must remember
not to be entertained
. This is serious business.
    I don’t know whether the dialect/creole course is going to be worth much. Mostly historical, except for a few isolated groups of antitechs and illiterates.
    I’m the only Worlds citizen in the management seminar. Also the only woman. Have decided not to be Machiavellian about it (though that’s contrary to the spirit of everything I know about management); it would be easy to twist the discussion around to Worlds administration, since everybody seems curious about it, including the professor. But I’m here to learn about Earth models. Earth mistakes.
    Don’t know much yet about the business and religion courses. They’re both big lectures, and the first day was mostly devoted to administrative details: goatshit about grades and attendance. Attendance! Are we children?
    Interestingly, the American literature seminar is led by a German, Herr Doktor Schaumann. He’s a twinkly old fellow with a dry sense of humor. The way he almost hides his intelligence reminds me a lot of John; it looks as if the course is going to be Socratic-aggressive. Simple questions full of fishhooks. Meat and drink for someone who grew up in the New New system, naturally.
    No Worlds people in that seminar, either. But they’re an interesting bunch, predictably different from the business and management types. One of them, Benny Aarons, is a bushy poet who seems to be interested in me. I don’t know whether or not to encourage him.
    Daniel wanted me to jump right in, try to live a normal social/sexual life. But it’s so damned complicated. I would really rather think about him than lay with someone else. And there’s so much else to do. Still, I liked the way that Benny boy looked at me when he thought I couldn’t see him.